


Tomorrow Promises

by namio



Series: No Time For Sorrow [3]
Category: AR∀GO ロンドン市警特殊犯罪捜査官 | Arago
Genre: Guilt, M/M, Post-Canon, and new beginnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 07:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4052329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/namio/pseuds/namio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guilt leaves you stranded, but maybe they'll be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow Promises

The sun shone over London today.

It was a strange thing, almost-- perhaps it was just so to Seth who hadn’t seen much of the outside world, who always slipped between people and disappearing the second they noticed him-- but it wasn’t as strange as the feeling that he could breathe.

For months now, all he’d been doing was using Sluagh Ghairm to help haul large construction things. The Orc whispered in the back of his mind, some murmurs amongst quiet poetry and self-deprecating noise in his head. It was never a talker. Once he moved the rubble and new bricks, the wind was gone, and he was off to a different place.

Oz came to see him at times, but left after a cup of tea--never sat down, always leaning against the doorway-- and there were no conversations. Beyond late-night rendezvous, only gazes spoke.

Lunch time. The workers had all gone to eat, and Seth sat down on the neatly stacked bricks to breathe.

It wasn’t easy, expending so much energy. No, the Orc and Sluagh Ghairm took no power from his end; such was the power of a lesser seed, who needed little requirements and provide as much as it was worth. But the dust clouded the air, his thought clouded his mind, and for seconds he could feel the warmth of blood running down his arms. He nearly dropped the giant rubble, then, and it took all he had to stop it.

Now he needed to breathe.

“There you are.”

Seth tilted his head, eyes betraying nothing, as Oz walked into view. 

The thing Seth rather admired from the man was how he made things look so easy. How easy it was to cope, to return to how things were-- how trivial hardships were, no matter how badly it burned. They were, of course, facades. But the way he walked over, boots and pants hiding his prosthesis, arm swinging as though it wasn’t a fake, convinced so many, Seth was surprised he wasn’t titled a Liar.

He’d seen it crumble, after all.

“You know, you don’t exactly have to run around like you’re avoiding Urizen,” Oz said, crossing his arms. His eyes reflected a kind of amusement, one that eluded simple adjectives: it was something like pity, understanding, confusion and a touch of something unnamable. “You’re not even home half the time. It gets kind of ridiculous.”

“You met me the other half of the time and you said nothing.”

Oz snorted. “Sure, fine. But whenever I  do need to talk to you, you magically disappear. Quite literally, in fact. I see you pop out all the time when people start noticing. But that’s not what I’m here for.”

There were some things Seth learned during their one night stands-- and some things that should, by all means, land him in an interrogation room as they were national secrets even though Oz spilled them out like childhood memories. First, Albions had easy familiarity with Blake, stemming from one important individual who named many, many things from his prophecies. The four guardians of the Cauldron of Dagda, for examples, were named after the Four Zoas, and thus the Albions had lessons on their etymology and sources. That was why Oz replied with such casualness, that was  how .

Second of all, Albion preferred diplomatic approaches.

Perhaps this was time. Perhaps now they would actually do it: ask him to hand over the Orc, return to life of mosaic normalcy, with too many pieces missing and not enough cement. Ask him to relinquish his power so that the past would not repeat; ask him to finally step down, as the game was now over. Seth was ready, he supposed.

“How about you join Albion?”

“ What? ”

“Join Albion. Formally. Do you need reasons, or will you answer me short form?” Oz’s voice held traces of amusement, but there was nothing funny about this.

“Why would you ask me that?”

Oz raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I? You have expertise over your power, you have the brain of a mastermind, the wiles of a manipulator, the pretty face of pretty much spy movies protagonist. You were able to gain information that were extremely hard to get without Albion connections and you weren’t even eighteen yet. You downed a sniper by getting him to snipe all tall buildings within a kilometre radius, although I really should ask you to please never repeat that again. You’re smart, borderline genius. You’ve got the drive, you have the means. If you want the support, Albion is offering itself to you.”

Seth breathed in, but air escaped him.

“You suspected I was going to steal Brionac in Lia Fail, and you’re not even wrong.”

“But you didn’t.” Oz shrugged. “It’s the action that matters in the end. It’s basically like murder: you were going to kill, but you didn’t.”

Seth wondered if Oz realised the cold comfort that was. But knowing the man, it was probably intentional. There were very few things Oz did that were not planned, and Seth appreciated the intelligence that went behind the painstakingly intricate games he played. If his embrace was stone, the statue he carved was a deliberate decision.

Perhaps that was why Seth trusted him.

“Fine.”

His inner sanctuary, his mental bricks were still trying to mend itself. He tore it down with his own hands, and he would put it back together himself. Accepting the offer might not be the best move when he didn’t even know how to build the road he wanted to walk down, but perhaps an outside perspective was what he needed to realign himself.

When he looked up, Oz had a gentle smile. It was a strange thing to behold: the time they spent together was often filled with snark and sarcasm, with debates on philosophy and the proverbs of hell and the benefits of writing cursive. It was no place for gentleness or sentimentality.

Oz held out his prosthetic hand and Seth grabbed it. Perhaps they shared a small smile. Seth stood up and brushed off the dust from his trousers, sighing as he did so.

"Can I ask you for a favour, though?"

"Oh?"

"If I walk back down that path, kill me."

Oz laughed. “We'll see when we get there."

 

**Author's Note:**

> And that's the last of it.


End file.
